Should a Door be Opened...Part 5
"Violence may be wrought at your whim, but peace will not come when you choose." Machiavelli
Previously in Part 4
“How long ago was this death?” hissed the Matriarch to the guard “There is little time…the bodies must be consumed, their souls must find another body, lest they be lost, to wander, broken and tormented for eternity!”
Part 5
In the Porticus Obscuratus Corbis stood some distance from Inquisitor Belsay’s bed. Despite the Sisters’ reassurances that it was not a fever, the speed with which the malady gripped the Maestre made Corbis uneasy. Bruising welled up from within his body and blossomed on his skin like a flower that was already rotten in the bud.
“Maestre, before I leave you for the Mines, I am fearful that House Chollerford will return in numbers.”
Belsay laboured to sit up in his bed. Annick and the Sisters helped and propped him with cushions and Corbis approached a few steps.
“Do I look as taken with this sickness as your face would have me believe, Corbis?” Belsay wheezed.
“I will not lie, Maestre, the sight of you, of how this illness shows upon you, and at such speed? I fear for you, as do we all.”
“I am in the best hands, Corbis, and the Sisters send for others; for stronger medicines.”
“But all the same, Maestre, there are things that even the good Sisters have no cure for. We cannot forget Maestre Guyzance –dead barely a hand of days –and should the Count or the Barron send more men? Maestre…I fear the artefact may fall to them. I have sown in the Barron’s mind a seed; a promise of gold. That man is driven by lust for it and Otho will not let rest that I poisoned his guard. He will be putting a flail out to rust for the hide of my back. Maestre…let me take the artefact with me. They will not know where I have gone, but if they come here –and one of them surely will –it may be lost before we can…”
“…No Corbis! It is far more likely to fall to others’ hands upon the road than it is secreted away here. My Guard will be prepared and Otho would not dare to breach the Librarium with a force of men. To my dying breath, it must stay here.”
“But Maestre…” Corbis hesitated to continue.
“Enough. Enough! I will not hear of it! The Artefact must stay, and you…you must go, and waste no more time. I will be fit enough for your return, I have faith in the Sisters and so should you. And besides, you do not give me credit for my own resolve to best this ailment. It was but a wasp sting after all.”
“Very well,” said Corbis. “I shall return as fast as I depart then. Annick…has the bird been sent ahead?
As Corbis galloped away from the Librarium, he left fear behind him with the artefact and the stricken Inquisitor. “Stride firm the chosen path!” were words his murdered father had bequeathed to him and to reach the Mines of Mount Amiata with all haste was now his focus.
In the Librarium, the Sisters:First had left Inquisitor Belsay to preserve his strength through their valerian-induced slumber. They paced a quadrangle with measured tread, careful not to let their concerns be shown with hasty steps. There were messages that must be sent, but only one bird with which to send them. The younger sister was concerned to warn the Hospitium of the portentous sickness; the older, with more exposure to the subtle machinations of the Sisterhood, suspected that Corbis’ mission, and what they had overheard about an artefact, held greater implications.
What to do?
“Let us write of both to the Countess, Sister Livia Drusilla; urge her to warn each Matriarch according to her own wisdom.” With only one slip of pressed parchment for the bird’s message capsule, they would need to make every letter count.
They set about the bird’s neck the lodestone charged at the Hospitium then loosed it from its wicker cage. It rose to the sky and circled once and then once more in a loop of eight before it found its path and disappeared from sight. The Sisters returned within where they sought out Annick.
“Your master is beyond our means to treat here with such medicines as we have with us. We must return to the Hospitium. Sister Agate will take from him a leechful for our divinations. I shall mix for you a sleeping draft and oil of sanitatis to be administered with aqua vitae. Do you have such within these walls? I am aware of the vows.”
Annick nodded.
“Very well. We shall consult the tractae medicinalis on our return, but I shall not honey the gall —the sickness that is in him? It was delivered by the sting of some pest, as was that which was the doom of Maestre Guyzance. Belsay himself said it. If we send word that your Maestre should be delivered to the Hospitium, or even the Mortuarium, will you ensure that it be done?”
Again, Annick nodded and soon the Sisters departed, their bird far ahead of them.
Sister Plen-Mellah, Matriarch of the Sisters:Last washed the blood of the dead concubines from her hands in an iron basin of blessed water. On a slate lay their hearts, the soul knife between them.
“What beasts with child have you?” she asked the Keeper.
“Swine, wolf and pard, Mother.”
Which home for their souls…perhaps one that will find its chance to sink teeth into their master…
“The wolf and the pard, then,” the Matriarch said. When the beasts were brought, the ritual of Domus Animarum was performed; then, the Matriarch took up the slate and presented it to the Keeper. “Let the beasts be fed. Let the souls find their home.”
As they watched the animals consume the succulent fresh hearts, driven by the hunger of their pregnancy, a young Sister entered the chamber, face flushed with the labours of haste.
“Mother, I bid you come with all speed. Sister Hexamanene is here and would speak with you on an urgent matter.”
“The Matriarch herself? From the Island? Is she come with Twelve? I do not understand; we have no departed for a Sending…”
“No Mother; she is here alone. She said only that she must speak with you, and by her voice, it is clear that she brings troubling news.”
In the Forest of Yeavering a lone crossbowman sat at his post: a narrow platform hung near the top of a tall tree. A man of the Chollerford House, he was clad in forest green and tatter-hides as camouflage. His position gave him clear view across the forest canopy. At the base of the tree a pair of hounds lay still; above him, a small dovecot by ropes was hung. Across the lands of the Chollerford House, and even beyond those borders, several such posts stood and each carefully placed. The crossbowmen of Count Otho cycled stealthily between them, or to those to which the Count directed. For the most part, they stand idle but today the marksman was especially vigilant…there was double bounty for a kill.
The hounds heard it first: the whip and whistle of pigeon wings. They sprang up and paced about the tree base, alerting the crossbowman with the bells at their collars. He stood, bow steel already drawn, a bolt smoothly knocked in place with practiced hands.
If the bird will not come to the dovecot, my bolt will find it, two times in three. Is it a messenger? Yes!
He took aim, judged the speed and let loose the bolt which finds its mark. He called to the dogs, and before he had descended to the ground, one of them was back with the bird soft-held in its jaws. He took the message pouch from its leg and the lodestone from its neck which he checked for a secret mark…The Count was right.
He knew better than to break the seal on the pouch and instead placed it intact within a pouch about the collar of the swifter of his hounds which he commanded return to the Palazzo before climbing back up to his roost. Perhaps another bird…perhaps another gold piece.
Later that day, the Count’s dark humour lightened when the message and its content proved his reasoning was correct, although the bird was travelling toward the Hospitium, not from it…Still, it was valuable information all the same. He cackled with satisfaction and called for his aide to remove his torture gown and gloves.
“Let that one go,” he said, gesturing behind him to a slave dangling from finger chains, gurgling and insensate. “I am moved to be merciful. She will live, do you think? The man will not - deal with it, will you?”
“Very well my Lord Count…but…whilst the woman may live… what work will she be fit for?” The aide jangled several loose chains, to each of which a severed finger remained clamped.
“Give her a silver piece for each, then free her from servitude. She’ll thank me for that as a fair bargain one day, eh?” Count Otho laughed and slapped the aide on his shoulder. “Now, fetch the Yeoman to my chambers; I have work for him. When that is done, have the Stablemaster ready me twenty horses and my carriage. Tomorrow, I shall be travelling to the Hospitium to pay respects to my Countess. I have denied her the pleasures of my flesh for long enough.”
As dusk hinted at arrival, two swift horses galloped from the palazzo. Their riders’ mission was a simple one - ride to the West Road and then towards the Hospitium. If they should happen upon any of the Sisterhood, they were to be stopped by whatever means and one brought back alive.
Later still, at the Charity of the Sisters:First, a hostel serving the sick and poor of the city, a shivering naked wretch is brought in from the gutters. Her back is shredded with the welts of a rusted flail and her hands are bloodied ruins. The Sisters tend to her, clean her wounds, dull her agony with resinous herbs, but before the mercy of their oblivion takes her, she whispers to them “The Count takes swords on the morrow to your mistress. Let her be warned.”
At the Mortuarium, Hexamanene waited alone, face hidden in the depths of her cowl. Slow ripples in the dark canal water cast serpentine shadows crawling up the walls of the stone tunnel. Her arrival at the jetty in a crude sail boat was unexpected; barges left here, bound for the Island, but sea vessels rarely came to the jetty. Hexamanene would not venture further into the Mortuarium and she bid the Sisters who welcomed her not to approach; rather, they were to fetch Plen-Mellah, the Matriarch and after, depart swiftly. She said nothing more until Plen-Mellah had arrived.
“Something terrible is visited upon us, Sister. Something…” her voice caught “...something that I can barely find the words for, but yet I must. I must bring this burden to you, for the sake of the Sisterhood.”
“Of what do you speak, Sister,” said Plen-Mellah, reaching out a hand in comfort, only to withdraw it, as if bitten, when Hexamanene shied away from her touch.
Hexamaneme pulled back her cowl and Plen-Mellah recoiled further and gasped in recognition.
“It is…it is the pestilence! The same that took Inquisitor Guyzance…but how? It was not a fever…how has it taken hold within you?”
The stricken sister withdrew from beneath her robe an iron box. She tapped the lid of it, the nail-bed of her finger blue-black with haemorrhage. “The cause of it is within this box. Have you a plague cell in which I may be locked? I have little time left to pass to you my knowledge of this curse. It has cost the lives of most of my Sisters to obtain. Their loss must not be in vain.”
It took a day’s ride for the magnitude of Mount Amiata to rise from beneath the smoky plume on the horizon that marked it’s place for Corbis. It was another half day on a sickened horse before he arrived at the gatehouse of the Mines. The height of the mountain was matched by the depth of the crater before it. At the summit, fire gouted, steam rose and coils of smoke and yellow vapours slid down the steep rock face, catching to sheets of blue flame. Machinery and structures crusted the razor sharp rim of the volcanic peak and clung to its sides on spidery scaffolds.
Below, a lake of poison-blue water concealed yet further depths with jadeite opacity. Huge funnels and cables fed into and out from the lake, intersected with barges and floating forges before disappearing into the rocky slopes.
Sharp iron clangs echoed across the crater; dull subterranean thudding rippled dust from the ground and everywhere a stench of sulfur brought water to the eyes.
“You’ll be advised to don this,” said the Guard tossing a helmet to Corbis “If you’re thinking to stand before the crater and gawp for much longer.”
Corbis turned to the Guard who wore an armoured version of the goggled helmet in Corbis’ hand. He gripped a massive hammer with thick, metalled gauntlets. His armour, with its brass rivets and studs, lent him the appearance of an iron boiler and across its dull leather surface, toxic salt rings marked where the chemical-laden air inexorably gnawed.
“And your ‘orse will not thank ‘ee to tarry long either,” continued the Guard, effortlessly swinging the hammer towards Corbis’ steed; mucous drooled from its muzzle and it stamped irritably. Corbis passed the helmet round and back in his hands until, with a snort, the guard took it from him and dragged it down over Corbis’ head.
“I have letters of introduction, for the eyes of the Wizard Ogune.” Corbis’ voice buzzed through the filter tubes of his helmet. He adjusted it so that his eyes were level with the goggle glasses and handed the guard his papers. “They bear the Seal Of the Inquisitor. They are for the Wzard’s eyes alone. It is a matter of the utmost haste.”
The Guard held the seal up before one of his goggle lenses and rotated the clicking brass rim of it. Satisfied, he handed the envelope back to Corbis. “There be two ways to the Mines. One by mule and cart, which may suit the scholarly bones of a librarian such as yourself best. However, if haste is the word of the day, then there is another way.”
“Haste is very much the word of the day, sir.”
“Very well then. Climb off that ‘orse –we’ll stable it for you, down a ways, out of the gas –and follow me.”
Corbis was lef along the crater edge to a tall scaffold-like structure. Thick cables ran from the top of it out across the vastness of the crater, up and up and up until they disappeared. From the cable hung ropes and a harness which the Guard pulled down and buckled around Corbis’s waist and groin.
“Loop your hands through these straps and do not let go, whatever terror may grip you.”
Corbis looked down at the harness, up to the cable, back to the Guard and then up to the summit of the crater.
“What weight are you? Tenth of a ton?” asked the Guard.
Corbis nodded “Roughly, a pound either side perhaps. What of it?”
The Guard didn't reply. He pulled a horn from his belt and screwed a dangling nozzled pipe to it from his helmet. Two long and two short blasts rang out and a few moments later, two distant horn blasts sounded back from somewhere above.
“Climb onto that platform, bookworm, and creep to the edge.”
Corbis shuffled onto the platform and edged out as far as he dared. The drop forced him back a step and his gut tightened as the realisation of what the other way to the Mines must be…
“Ready?” asked the Guard. Before Corbis could answer that he was not, another long blast from the horn sounded. There was keening thrumming sound in the air above him and then with a savage jolt he was suddenly airborne; airborne and screaming, his stomach and the laughter of the Guard left far behind…
to be continued…
Oh I am glad you keep extending this story. Presumably by getting carried away with each scene. I heartily approve. It's wonderful!
I hope that fat torturing child-abusing bastard gets what's coming to 'im. He's increasingly reminding me of Gilles de Rais, or Baron de Bonvoisier.
This is getting better and better! I have to say that the quick way to get to the Wizard would have me screaming my head off - I've been known to freeze up on ladders. I'm not sure how you're going to wrap this up, though I'm of a mixed mind about it: For your sake I hope it's over soon, but for all of us hungry readers, I hope it goes on and on! 😉